Hello everyone. I am writing to check in with the population of drummers here to see how you feel about pirating of music and all other forms of art.
I would like to hear specifically from younger cats who grew up with computers an the Internet. As you may or may not know, this problem is bankrupting the industry.
Now... I am totally against record companies and I hope the major
labels due as soon as possible for continuing to polllute the world with tripe. Haha
But ... This problem hurts independents artists more then it does huge corporations.
I can't tell you how many of my friends are deciding against releasing any more material until this problem is worked out. It's really out of control now.
Here us a personal example if I may.
My DVD Afro Cuban drumming has apparently stolen / downloaded from torrents over 45,000 times. This is ... Very disturbing and extremely sad for
me since the thing cost a small fortune to produce. Not to mention the 11 months it took to finish. It was tons and tons of work.
So I have a series of questions which I hope someone can answer and I hope that we can exchange ideas here about this. IMHO we need to solve this together because one day you will be in the position I am in.
Do you think all music and instructional material should be free?
Do you download music from iTunes?
Do you know about and use torrents?
Do you think movies should be free?
Also, does anyone see positive solutions for the future?
Does any one know of technology that prevents torrent sharing?
Do you project yourself into the future and put yourself in the position of artists now?
Or do you consider it a compliment if someone downloads your material.
Lots of questions but... There are many issues we have here and if we are not the pioneers on this ...no one will do anything.
I look forward to all thoughts.
Hi Phil!
I have a gun to my head on a project and have limited time to talk about this right now but I wanted to comment on this and will be glad to revisit it. I will warn you, however, that sarcasm is my second language.
I use Itunes and pay for every song that I buy off of it. This is useful when I have a band hire me out for a month and the songlist has Donna Summer, Ohio Players and one song from other artists on the list. No disrespect to Donna Summer, but I am not a fan and my resources are limited and therefore, I can't justify buying "The Best of Donna Summer" cd just so that I can listen to one song. I don’t mind paying for one song that I need to learn and 99 cents is about right for the song “I’m Coming Out” or “Fire”. It is just more cost effective than $14.99.
As a drummer who has both a DVD and a video podcast avaible for purchase, I went to some expense out of my own pocket to produce and I should rightfully expect to see some ROI (Return on Investment) for my efforts, just like you should!
As a patent holder, inventor and entrepreneur, I also expect to see ROI on my retroplates, just like DW, Zildjian, Vic Firth and any other product manufacturer should expect to make a profit. And there’s the dirty word – profit.
Funny, I also expect to get paid for my time as a teacher teaching private drum lessons. I have built a good career in drumming and have played for some legends.
No, movies shouldn’t be free either. And yes, I am aware of torrent.
I have three books, which I am about to publish and they will be available only in analog form (this means delivered to your mailbox, printed on paper) due to the fact that, if people have begun to develop such a high sense of self-entitlement, I must put my own effort into policing my intellectual property. This means that, yes, someone could pirate my work, but given the current level of laziness of such people, any effort more than a mouse click will be too much effort for them to go to.
Is the music industry to blame for all of this? I don’t think so and I know that this will make me the villain here on DW, but it is a free country or used to be anyway.
Some said that sharing is a way to sample the music. This is incredibly shortsighted and not true. Radio used to be the way the consumer “sampled” music and then decided if he or she like the song enough to buy it in order be able to listen to it anytime they wish. Barnes and Noble, Borders, the internet, Myspace and the like have all made it possible for consumers to sample music, even that of unknown artists. They can now decide if the song is worth purchasing or not – but why don’t they? I will come back to this in a moment.
Now, here is where what I am going to say that will ake me the villain. It may come as a surprise to many of us here on DW, musicians and drummers alike but the vast majority of the public doesn’t play a musical instrument and cannot truly appreciate the work we put into our craft. And even more shocking, they don’t have time to because they are concerned with paying the mortgage and trying to put braces on one child and putting another through college. By the way, college (which seems to have become an entitlement) is an investment which we seek a return on, but I digress. This is where the much-maligned “Pop music” and the Music Business get whipped up on. Have you ever noticed that the word BUSINESS is bigger than the word MUSIC?
Because the population at large hasn’t developed an ear for the drummer going off into Hip-hop/funk/ gospel/R&B/jazz/fusion/serbo-croatian/21 against 5 land, this means that they listen to music that is simple and what they can relate to and they seek it out and buy it (or used to). This is why it is called POP MUSIC – short for the word POPULAR.
And now I will delve into the word of guitarland but not for very long because it makes my head hurt and lowers my IQ. One name – Warren Cuccurulo. What DW? You have never heard of him? Why some of his band mates are guys you have heard of – Terry Bozzio, Vinnie Colaiua, Ed Mann! Yep, Warren played in Frank Zappa’s band. He and Terry had a band called Missing Persons – they had hit songs (those sellouts! How dare they try to put food on the table!). Missing Persons eventually went by the wayside and broke up. Warren went looking for a good steady gig when Andy Taylor of Duran Duran made the ill-fated mistake of venturing out on his own solo career and hired Terry Bozzio to play drums for him. Warren called up Duran (x2) and told them that he was available for their upcoming tour. After checking that Andy was really intent on torpedoing his career, they hired Warren on. Warren played for Duran for about 6 or seven years (not sure of how long). Then in about 1995, after playing the song “The Reflex” more times than humanly possible warren joined up with some former band mates like Vinnie Colauita and proceeded to record and subsequently release the CD “Thanks to Frank” in a very frugal package of cardboard. The Modern Drummer review of this disc put is bluntly “If Vinnie’s playing hasn’t scared you in sometime, buy this CD”. Warren put out the musical equivalent of Aliens, Predator and the Terminator on one disc. This disc was never meant to be POP MUSIC; it was meant to satisfy Warren’s creative side, which had been developing while paying his dues, by satisfying the masses by playing such tripe songs like “Planet Earth” and “Girls on Film”. In short (for those of you still awake), Warren paid for this project by paying his dues (which seem to never be paid in full) by playing in a commercially (a word which conatates commerce and thus money) viable band.
Okay, I am back from guitar land and have an IV and am resting comfortably while I regain my intelligence and a decent sense of humility.
Phil, I think that the problem lies with a generation which has been taught by its parents that they are entitled to have everything they set eyes on and do so like a plague of locusts, devouring and destroying everything they touch. It always amuses me when I have a student cry about having to pay me for lesson time but then turn around and ask me “How do you get paid for playing music?” or “How do you make a living from playing the drums?”
I think it also lies with the “Rockstar” mentality which has invaded so many areas of the world. The same student honestly believes that he only needs two drum lessons (if that many) and a DW/Zildjian endorsement to sound good. This same student is always spouting off about how much everyone else sucks. He decries anyone who makes money in a commercial way as an automatic sellout and doesn’t understand why he can’t get the masses to pack his show at Knott’s Berry farm (admission is free there) to listen to him get off playing in odd time signatures. He desperately wants “someone to make him a ROCKSTAR” and doesn’t realize that those days are long gone and that the responsibility of his success rests on his shoulders alone. He doesn’t realize that there are talented drummers everywhere like Paul Bowman in Corpus Christi, Texas or Enid, Oklahoma which where a great drummer by the name of Dave Anderson is from or Bethel acres which is where Jame Keys is from. Or Iowa, which is where John Robinson is from…or South Dakota or Minnesota or Wisconsin.
I think, Phil, that it is a combination of the underlying symptoms of a lack of respect for hard work which you (or any other artist) put in, a complete indifference and lack of caring as to how money works and nothing but pure jealousy in some instances.
I refuse to lay the blame on the conspiracy theory of the Music Business, the Machine” or the record labels. Even if these were to exist, how does the artist cope with them and deal with them effectively in order to get what said artist wants out of life. This is why I used Warren Cuccurullo as an example. He eventually got what he wanted. Neil Peart once said in an MD interview that there “were no failures in talent; only failures in character.” And he may have been quoting some else at that.
Sheer determination alone is omnipotent.
So Phil, yes you have the right to expect compensation for shelling out a small fortune you dispensed out of your own pocket to make your DVD. Many people simply go to a job, put their time in and expect to get a check, never realizing where the money in that check comes from. It comes from customers buying products or services, both of which you have dutiflied rendered to them.
Yes- I can be a windbag!
Mike
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